Hello everybody!
My name is Hella (actually the word hell is closely related to my name and both come from Anglosaxon words like hélan or helan, which mean to cover or to hide; in old Norse slaa ihel means "to kill") and I live under one of the roots of Yggdrasil tree.
To be more specific, I live in Helheim, the darkest side of Niflheim (I've never been a big fan of sunbathing...).
Actually you will recognize my home easily since it is surrounded by a wall with one or more opening doors (it depends on how many visitors come to my place that day...) and the shady rivers around it, like Slid, which flows towards West through valleys full of poison, mud and swords (doesn't it sound like paradise?).
You can arrive to my home, by walking through Helway just like the god Hermóðr did, when he came to ask me to set Baldr free, so that they could go back together Asgard. Needless to say that I refused his request due some reasons that I will tell you in future entries of this blog...
To arrive to my home, Baldr rode Sleipnir (Odin's eight legged horse) for 9 days and 9 nights, through a downward war and always toward north... I guess that due the cool and fast cars that we have nowadays, you could make it even faster.
If you are not in a hurry and are not that sporty or virtuous people, I can always come and bring you to my sweet home.
You will recognize me easily: my dog Gnapapellir will bark near you as I approach, or you will see my three legged horse or my three white legged goat come to you.
I must warn you that to fight boredom (now you know why some people say to be bored like hell...), sometimes I turn myself into a bullock and go from farm to farm looking for my future guests. I must admit that I do not do it too often, since I always get halitosis when I do it...
The other reason I do it from time to time, is that some people offered me oatmeal if I let them live longer, and as a bullock I cannot resist a good dish full of delicious oatmeal and neither my horse and my goat can do it.
Because of that in the middle of XIV century, as the Black Pest devastated Norway and other European regions, I had to change my strategy and turn myself into an old sorceress and knock every church door with a rake or a broom (it depended on how many guests did I want to have that day) to do my job.
I must admit that my home is big enough to host everybody, although due Odin is faster when it comes to pick up fallen in battle men (I think that after doing that they see the best moves in battle when they reach Walhalla... just like as if they were watching a soccer match...), and because of that I always end up picking up the non-virtuous men, men without honor, adulterous, traitors... or those who die because they are too old or ill.
If I had two normal legs instead of having a normal one and one skeleton-like, which tumbles down every now and then, then we'll see who gets the best guests home...
Although I must confess that I have also had celebrities like Baldr who was killed by his brother Höðr, Sigurd who killed Fafnir and who was killed by Günther or the lovely Brynhildr who arrived with her beauty cart after being burnt in her pyre.
Thanks to those important guests and the information about the Scandinavian people that I gathered for centuries (and yes, the arrival of new technologies was a great help too...), which I got through conversations with my guests or simply with the notes that my servants took during the night chit-chats next to the dying people, I decided to create this blog to share with you all weekly the traditions, art, gastronomy, mythology , etc... of Nordic people who lived between IX and XI century.
I will also tell you about the Eddas' gossips and their main characters so that you get to know them better.
I hope that you enjoy as much as I do, the stories about my guests that I will write here.
See you in Hel :)
